Refugees’ protection has long been one of the main challenging programs of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). According to the estimation done by UNHCR in late 2010, “there are around 43.7 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. Around 27.5 million are internally displaced people, 15.4 million are refugees and 837500 are asylum seekers.” Afghanistan has been the sole source of refugee since the soviet invasion in 1979, following decades of ethnic conflicts (Civil War) and the last decade of war against terrorist.
The three decades of dark eras in Afghanistan have caused millions of displacements with in the country and abroad the country. There is no country in the world where an Afghani is not begging for shelter and protection. Iran and Pakistan are the two key neighboring countries who have been hosting millions of Afghan refugees for years. But during 1990s, Afghan refugees found “Australia” as an alternative shelter for themselves and clouds of Afghan asylum seekers have been fleeing to Australian territories by boat and via offshore refugee processing programs.
Referring back to the history of Afghan refugees in Australia, the first group of Afghan people arrived to Australia in 1860s. They were a group of cameleers who entered the Australian territories with traveling papers obtained during their service with British India.
There were only eight Afghan males entered the territories by traveling papers of British India and they worked in all areas of transportations including exploration, mining, and the supply of provision to homesteads. With the technology enhancement during 1920s, cars and trucks were introduced to Australia as an alternative to camels; then, Afghan cameleers got redundant. Some of them returned to Afghanistan and few of them got small property ownerships and permanently settled there. The number of Afghan-born people living in Australia had increased up to 394 in 1901s and had a gradual decline in graph of population in early 1980s.
Following the Soviet Union invasion in 1979 and dark eras of civil war during 1990s resulted millions of Afghan to flee their home country and beg for shelter outside their home territories, the second group of Afghan refugees arrived to Australia during 1979s by boat via Indian Ocean, majority of them settled in Victoria and New South Wales.
The Afghan-born population of Victoria increased from 764 in 1991 to 5246 in 2006. Victoria is currently hosting the second largest Afghan community in Australia outside New South Wales. The majority of Afghan-Australian citizens work in manual laboring such as production, transportation and construction. The majority of Afghan refugees are Muslims under the age of 34, living in Dandenong area. There are different organizations such as Afghan Australian Welfare Association who supervise the community and assist the new arrivals with employment, housing and other settlement issues.
The geographical capacity of Australia in comparison to its population has been the primary ideal alternative choice of shelter for asylum seekers from underdeveloped and developing countries. Australia is signatory member of United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol. Any person falling within the convention’s defining of a refugee is entitled to government protection. Considering the articles of 1951 UN’s Convention and 1967 protocols, asylum seekers are also entitled to refugee protection till their status is not determined.
There is a quite difference between the two types of immigrants. Refugee determination is being done outside the country of settlement and asylum seekers claims for shelter are processed and considered with in the country of settlement. Australia is highly preferred and appreciated by refugees because of its enhanced economy, infrastructure and a stable democracy with low profile of conflict throughout its history. But alas, the country’s geographical isolation makes it cast consuming and hard to get there.
As a result of the recent incidents in Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the number of asylum seekers in Australia has doubled. According to United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) reports of worldwide refugees’ population, Australia had 23,434 designated refugees living in the country, Canada housed around 164,883 refugees, Germany hosted the fourth largest number of refugees had 571,685 and Pakistan with hosting around 1,702,700 is among the top countries with most of refugee’s population.
Australia is hosting the lowest population of worldwide refugees in comparison to other countries. In addition, the number of asylum seekers awaiting the final decision on whether they will be granted refugee status is relatively low compared to other countries. According the detailed report of UNHCR in late 2011, Australia had only 5,242 official asylum seekers whose case were pending for final approval of granting refugee status. Considering the figures by in UNHCR reports, Australia is not placed even among the top 40 states housing the largest number of refugees worldwide.
On the other hand, in contrast to the figures and UNHRC claims of Australia’s capacity for sheltering more refugees; during the last few days, deportations of asylum seekers from Charismas Island Detention Camps and offshore detention centers reestablishment planes of Australian government in Nauru and Papua New Guinea have featured the top headlines of Western and Australian medias. The decision is made along after around 600 asylum seekers have lost their lives in the Ocean as a result of boats’ capsize during the last three years.
Similarly, a boat carrying around 67 asylum seekers has gone missing during the last few weeks. According to Home Affairs Minister, “Group has not been heard from since setting off from Indonesia for Charismas Island.” Australian authorities have experimented different strategies of challenging asylum seekers arriving by boats taking the risk of their precious life. But unfortunately, they have succeeded in developing appreciable strategies of regulating the cloud of refugees entering the country via the Ocean by the help of human trafficking agencies in Indonesia and Malaysia.
There have been controversial debates between the ruling party (Labor Party) and oppositions on the issues of asylum seekers. Due to recent incidents in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt, the number of asylum seekers are increasing daily and the crime rates have doubled in the country. According to the report published on the Medias, “the number of asylum seekers who have arrived Christmas Island this year has reached around 7,600.” The asylum seekers’ population in comparison to the past few years is almost doubled.
The opposition party headed by Tony Abbott had been pressurizing the government to define certain strategies of regulating the illegal entrance of immigrants in the country which finally resulted the government to form a panel for restructuring the strategies for granting refugee status to asylum seekers.
The panel was headed by the former Australian Defense Force Chief Angus Houston who introduced 22 recommendations for government aimed at tackling people-smuggling issues, including re-opening mothballed offshore processing centers in Nauru and PNG that were closed during the early 2007 when the Labor Party won the election.
The panel said its recommendations aimed to encourage people to seek asylum via official channels and reduce the number of illegal boat arrivals. The implementation would cost around A$1bn a year, the panel added. Though the recommendations were welcomed by some organizations such as Green Party and were a U-turn against the constitutions followed by the Labor Party, but the government had no alternative rather than appreciating.
Government and most of the oppositions have supported the suggested solutions by the panel and are considering it a better solution for asylum seekers instead of risking their life for an onshore process of their case. But according to UNHCR warning to Australian government, the offshore process of the asylum seekers’ case can be time consuming and the setbacks can cause the asylum seekers to suffer psychological damage which is deemed against the human rights.